“Make America great again.” What a novel and wonderful concept, Too bad with this year’s presidential candidates the chances of that actually happening seem to be far from a possible reality. The candidates have enthusiastically proven in debate after debate that they are far from the normal crop of traditional politicians.
You mean to tell me that a bully, a liar, a man as old as time, an extreme conservative, and John Kasich are the very best that America has to offer? That is something I simply refuse to believe to be true, but it seems as though we will be stuck with one of them either way.
Let’s start by discussing the bully of the bunch. Donald Trump has been by far the most offensive and outspoken candidate in the mix. He’s made an extensive amount of racist and sexist comments as well as just generally insulting statements in his short stint in politics. He blew off an entire debate just because he didn’t like one of the moderators. And the cherry on top, he’s recently come under fire for encouraging his supporters to deal with people who don’t share their views with violence.
I totally understand some people’s interest in a man that doesn’t stick to the rules of normal politics. The concept of a more honest and open leader is something that I too would love, but the problem lies in the fact that he just isn’t a good person. He takes his “honesty” too far, doesn’t have any semblance of a filter and incites fighting instead of peace among people. That is not the kind of man that should be running our country, and it’s obvious that possibility upsets many other nations as well, based on their reactions to his campaign.
Hillary Clinton, the only traditional politician in the group as well as the aforementioned liar, doesn’t offer any more hope for the future. We’ve already seen her husband as president, and the most memorable thing to come from that was the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which doesn’t exactly speak volumes to his accomplishments in office. That being said, I can’t imagine that her politics will be that different from his, and we’ve already been there and done that.
If that isn’t reason enough for you, which I understand, there’s also the whole email scandal and possible involvement with Benghazi to offer more reason against her. I, for one, am quite over hearing about the whole email drama, but I do have to say that it doesn’t inspire me to trust her when she seemed so adamantly against owning it up to or discussing the reasons behind it. For anyone that would vote for her purely to see the first female president, I think that we can do much better.
I have to say that Bernie Sanders seems like such a sweet old man, and if I could vote for one candidate on personality alone he would have my vote. Sadly, that’s not the only aspect to consider, and due to his extremely socialist views, I don’t think he’s the solution to our country’s future. As a soon-to-be-college-student, I am totally behind the idea of free education, but I think we can all recognize that it being absolutely free is not an achievable reality. That money will have to come from somewhere.
For those of you that look across the world and point out that socialism is already working in some countries, you wouldn’t be wrong, but with America already being trillions of dollars in debt, now doesn’t seem the best time to implement something that will probably initially cost a good bit of money. Sanders’ age also concerns me as the amount of stress that a president faces is enough to age a person 20 years, and he’s already 74. Between his socialist views and old age, I have to say that I don’t think he’s the answer either.
Ted Cruz takes traditional Republican viewpoints to a bit of an extreme, but currently seems to be getting the reluctant support of the Republican Party, mainly because they don’t have many other options. I personally don’t have that much to say about Cruz, which I think speaks to a problem in-and-of itself. If Trump, Clinton and Sanders have done one thing correct, it’s been getting a good amount of publicity for themselves. Cruz is really only generating talk and support through the people that Trump has offended, not on his own merit or outstanding political plans.
He recently spoke out against Obama nominating the person to replace Scalia on the Supreme Court and supported the House shooting down any nomination made without even considering the person. I understand that Democrats and Republicans don’t see eye to eye on most issues, and that with Obama being a Democrat there’s a good possibility that his nomination will mirror his own political views, but that doesn’t mean that will necessarily happen. I don’t like that Cruz sticks so rigidly to one standpoint. He doesn’t seem to be very open-minded, if he’s encouraging others to vote it down before even considering the person. I think that Cruz is far too rigid to make decisions in our constantly changing country, which rules him out too.
Now we’re left with John Kasich, who is probably the most moderate of the entire group. Similar to Cruz, I don’t have too much to say against him because he really hasn’t done much to spark talk or land himself in the headlines. He’s only won one state to this date, his home state of Ohio, and is sitting in third place behind both Trump and Cruz. I don’t think that a man that can have so little influence in a campaign against only a handful of people should really be the face of our country, which doesn’t make him the best choice either.
All in all, in my opinion choosing any of these candidates is like choosing between a rock and a hard place. I think our best bet as Trump would say is to “get them all out of here.”